A First Impression...

Many FReDA respondents are in a relationship, but not all couples live together in the same household. We asked our participants why they do not live with their partner. Only 37% say that either they or their partner want to live separately.
Over 60% of respondents in a relationship say external circumstances keep them from living together. The reason why they don't live together that was named most often (30%) was job-related circumstances. The second most common response was outside circumstances (23%) and the third most common answer is housing-related circumstances (21%). Keeping in mind the increasing flexibility to work from home, it is possible that these numbers may change in the coming years.

What difference can be observed in this context with regard to relationship status? How does this change for couples when the partners are single, married, or divorced?

FReDA isn’t just interested to learn about participants’ current relationships. We also ask about past relationships. For example, we found that most FReDA respondents aged 30-40 have been in 2-4 relationships: 54% of men & 63% of women. More men than women have been in five or more relationships (16% vs. 12%) or in no relationships (8% vs. 4%).

When looking at living together or being married, the majority of FReDA respondents aged 30-40 have previously lived with or were married to someone. Based on education, more respondents without a university-level education had lived with or were married 2-4 times compared to those with a university-level education.

This was just a first look at the data, which is just meant to be an example. You can see for yourself: A wide variety of analyses are possible with the data from FReDA. If you are a scientist, we cordially invite you to work with the FReDa data set. The data are available to researchers for scientific and non-commercial purposes and are distributed by GESIS - Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences. Access is free of charge.

Information on data access is available here.